Roman Catholic Church officials reached a key milestone in the drive to make Pope John Paul II a saint today, closing an investigation into his life during a Latin-filled ceremony on the second anniversary of the beloved pontiff's death.Also today, church officials from France delivered a dossier to the Vatican detailing the purported miraculous cure of a French nun who prayed to John Paul — a key requirement for beatification, the last step before possible sainthood.
The remarkably fast pace underscores the Church's keen interest in beatifying John Paul and responding to the calls of "Santo Subito" or "Sainthood Immediately" that erupted after his death.
Pope Benedict XVI put John Paul on the fast track for possible sainthood just weeks after his death on April 2, 2005, waiving the customary five-year waiting period and allowing the investigation into John Paul's virtues to begin immediately.
Such a waiver had only been granted once before, to Mother Teresa.
Today, officials from the Rome diocese presided over the closure of the investigation, using ribbons sealed with wax to tie shut boxes of documents that will be forwarded to the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints for consideration.
"I dare say that our work in these 21 months has been easy, in the sense that undertakings that bring joy are easy," Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope's vicar for Rome, told the faithful in highlighting some of John Paul's "saintly" traits.
But for many in the pews of St. John Lateran Basilica, the church's investigation and the ceremony were to some degree unnecessary.
"There's no doubt for me he's already a saint," said Teresa Broda, who came to Rome with other Polish pilgrims from Katowice. But, she added, "I'm here with all my heart."
Among those present was Sister Marie-Simone-Pierre, 46, who says she was inexplicably cured of Parkinson's disease — which John Paul himself suffered in his later years — after she prayed to him.
The Vatican's complicated saint-making procedures require that a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession be confirmed before beatification. A second miracle is necessary for canonization.
Today, officials from Simon-Pierre's diocese delivered the documentation about the alleged miracle to the Vatican, an official at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said, refusing to be identified further.
The Congregation will now appoint medical experts to determine if there are medical explanations for the cure.
Theologians will then determine if the cure came as a result of prayer to John Paul.
If panels of bishops and cardinals agree that John Paul led a virtuous life and that Simon-Pierre was indeed miraculously cured, they will forward the case to Benedict. He will then decide if his predecessor deserves to be beatified.
Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who is spearheading the beatification cause, acknowledged recently that his probe was completed unusually quickly considering the vast amount of material that had to be collected.
About 130 people were interviewed, historians gathered books about John Paul from libraries around the globe and theologians studied his private writings to determine if he ever wrote anything heretical.
But he again declined to give a timetable for any possible beatification, telling Poland's TVN24 television: "The beatification process is not a media question, it is a question of the Holy Spirit."
Among those calling for swift canonization is the pope's longtime private secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, archbishop of Krakow, Poland, who attended todays ceremony.
At dawn, he also celebrated a Mass to mark the anniversary of John Paul's death at his tomb in the grottos underneath St. Peter's Basilica.
"For us he's already a saint, but you have to do everything according to the rules of the Catholic Church." Dziwisz has said.
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